I was curious so I contacted the WH press office about this and they referred me to the DNC. The DNC spokesman, Hari Sevugan, confirmed that they bought the placement for the Google link on Friday and that it went up that day, but that it went up right after the SEC report came out. He wouldn't answer any questions about how long the time period was between when the SEC released their report and when the paid link went up. I told him that I had heard that it might have been as quick as an hour after the SEC report. When I asked if that was typically how quickly ads went up or the DNC had gotten any special treatment in getting the ad up quickly, the DNC spokesman, Hari Sevugan, went on and on about how I was claiming that they bought the ad before the SEC charges. I told him that I wasn't questioning his claim that they bought the ad after the SEC announcement, but that I was curious whether the DNC got any special treatment in being able to get the links posted up at the top of the page so quickly. At that point, Sevugan said that I was accusing them of buying the ads before the SEC report. Again, I told him that I accepted his statement, but that I was wondering if they got special treatment in getting it up so fast, that it was my understanding that it normally took longer to get the paid links longer to be put up. I tried as best as I could to explain that asking about special treatment didn't imply anything about them placing the ad before the SEC announcement and that indeed it suggested the opposite. But he still refused to answer the question. Given that he refused to answer questions about how the ads were placed, I asked if he could provide me the name of the company that placed the ad, but again he declined.

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I read this post about ten minutes before my law and economics class in which I talked about the Goldman case. My students loved hearing about the search result, especially since a few had laptops and could check it out for themselves.